HEY MAN, I really need your help...

...the thing is, I need you to start progressing faster then ever, but to achieve that I need your help:

* Don't know where to start? Just pm me and we will sort it out directly, I am online every day.

* Join My Army. Sounds aggressive? It is! We can study anything from the most fearsome picking techniques to bombastic songwriting. A medal of honor awaits the brave. Seriously, this is an opportunity for you to get a personalised learning experience...what are you waiting for?!

* Join my next video chat! GMC startpage holds a video chat schedule. We always cover a lot of ground and have fun. Remember that you don't need any previous knowledge, and you can be passive in the chat.

Welcome to your thread for Gab's Army, my mentoring program. Here I will guide you to get the best from GMC to understand all the secrets behing Thrash Metal music. We will analyze all the theory and techniques used in order to be able to replicate the best songs of the masters Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Overkill, Exodus, and also to be able to compose your own metal music.

Welcome to your thread for Gab's Army, my mentoring program. Here I will guide you to get the best from GMC to understand all the secrets behing Thrash Metal music. We will analyze all the theory and techniques used in order to be able to replicate the best songs of the masters Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Overkill, Exodus, and also to be able to compose your own metal music.

Hi Gab, I will get to recording my playing for you, ive not done that before so I will get it done ASAP. Should be done in next couple of days.To introduce myself, im a 46 year old guy whos' taste in music has got heavier as i've got older:) At age 17 I got my first guitar and I wanted to be Eric Clapton (bluesbreaker period) I played in a band at Uni but we were never serious, more like the occasional small pub gig. Sort of gave up guitar until late 30's again but didn't really have any goals in mind, apart from jamming along to records.

Couple of years ago I was taken along to a Megadeth gig by a mate and was blown away! As I listened to more of their albums I have become mesmerised by the guitar work, and I started to check out Testament, Annihilator, Overkill etc. Before it was always soloing that caught my ear but the thrash rhythms really get me (tho Marty Friedman and Alex Skolnick are awesome and learning to sweep pick would be the business) however ive found learning the riffs really tricky on my own, it was by chance I stumbled across GMC on the web and saw Thrash content and lessons!

My goals are really to become the best metal guitarist I can, I want to really feel that I can play the guitar and not be embarrassed in the guitar shop...( I find those places sooo intimidating, with the 15 yr old whizzkids)To Jam along accurately to some of my fave tracks would be awesome , maybe even join some other oldies in a band!

Realistically, with working fulltime, ive found I can practice about 2 hours every day, tho not always weekends as I go away a lot with my wife, so I guess the more I structure my practice the better?Guitarwise I have a Dean VMNT Dave Mustaine signature (Angel of Death:)) and an Ibanez with locking edge Trem. For an amp I have a Yamaha THR10 connected via amplitube on my PC.

Hope this gives you some idea Gabe, I am ready to put the hard work in and I already get the feeling it will be great to get your advice ( your lessons have really inspired me already after checking them out, Great Stuff Gabe! they are such high quality , you are a fantastic player.

Hi mate! Thanks for this info, it's really cool to know how you are and your relation to music and guitar. I can notice that you are very passionate so I'm sure that we will have a great time here. At first we will focus on modules 1 and 2 that will allow you to play your favorite songs and to jam along with them. Then we will move to modules 3 and 4 that are most based on creating your own stuff applying things worked on the first modules.

Before we start, it is very important for me to see your current level so the first task is recording the video and posting it here, deal?

Hi mate! Thanks for this info, it's really cool to know how you are and your relation to music and guitar. I can notice that you are very passionate so I'm sure that we will have a great time here. At first we will focus on modules 1 and 2 that will allow you to play your favorite songs and to jam along with them. Then we will move to modules 3 and 4 that are most based on creating your own stuff applying things worked on the first modules.

Before we start, it is very important for me to see your current level so the first task is recording the video and posting it here, deal?

Deal Mate, Here goes i've never posted my playing before so I thought I'd do a tribute: it took me three evenings away from work to get it to this level so be kind!

Right thought I'd better include some lead playing as well, here's my cover of Troy Stetinas 4th solo from learnMetal Lead:

Hi friend!! Congrats on these videos! Both are VERY helpful for me to know your current level. Thanks a lot. I can notice that you have a very good sense of rhythm and that's a very good strong point. At the same time, I can note that everything can be polished both rhythm and soloing so that's what we are going to do in this program. We have to make those riffs sound more defined and adjust techniques as bending, vibrato, alternate picking, and add others like tapping, sweep picking, pinch harmonics, etc.

As I said previously we will work on parallel with modules 1 and 2 so these are the tasks for this week.

Hey thanks for the feedback (im working on being able to record a better sound)

I totally agree about the polish needed! I will get right on with my tasks for the week.Right I'm off to practice, thanks again for the help Gabe

Catch you next week, Cheers mateDes

QUOTE (Gabriel Leopardi @ Aug 14 2014, 08:15 AM)

Hi friend!! Congrats on these videos! Both are VERY helpful for me to know your current level. Thanks a lot. I can notice that you have a very good sense of rhythm and that's a very good strong point. At the same time, I can note that everything can be polished both rhythm and soloing so that's what we are going to do in this program. We have to make those riffs sound more defined and adjust techniques as bending, vibrato, alternate picking, and add others like tapping, sweep picking, pinch harmonics, etc.

As I said previously we will work on parallel with modules 1 and 2 so these are the tasks for this week.

Hi Gabe, Im back from Hols and a brief hospital stay ( things start to fall apart at my age )

I thought I'd better post the stuff ive been working on from what you gave me so here is my latest vid.One thing I wanted to ask is how do I polish the track, is it a matter of continuing to go over and over it? or should I build it up v slowly? im not sure how much progress I should be making over the week. Took me several evenings to get video up to the standard here (including the timing errors lol)

Hi mate, great to know that you are feeling better now. The lesson is evolving very good. There are not estimated times to master a technique or lesson. This depends on many factors related to quantity of practice, continuity and nature skills.

A good way to master a lesson like this one is practicing it every day but also identifying the sections that need more problem and isolate them. Take each of the parts that need more work and write them down as isolated exercises. If the parts can be even divided in 2 or 3 parts for practice do it. Take all this new exercises and practice them as a loop over metronome of a drum loop. Practice this every day, and if it's possible create variations that could be extra exercises to work on the problem. After some days of this practice you will start to notice that you will be able to play the overall lesson better.

You are on the right track with this lesson, but there are 2 things that you need to have in mind on the next days of practice:

- Timing: You have some timing issues on different parts of the lesson (for example at 00:24, 00:39, 00:47, 1:00). You usually tend to play a bit before the beat so try to pay special attention to the marked sections to play them tighter with the drums.

- Tuning / Pitch issues / Chords sound: There are some chords that sound weird. For example, every time you play D5 chord in the first section (the position starting at 5th fret of 5th string), the chord sound noisy and the pitch can be noted, it sounds more like a noise. You have to make it sound clearer. The section starting at 00:26 sounds like if your guitar would be a bit out of tune, maybe your 6th string wasn't perfectly tuned. The chords neither sound clear there so pay attention to it too. The last section starting at 01:07 is also sounding noisy, not clear and with some timing issues, please work on it.

Keep on practicing this lesson focusing on this details and record a new take in some days.